by Selena Scott
She liked his scowl. She couldn’t say why, in particular. But she did. Same as how she liked his smell after he’d been outside and sweating. He came in and smelled like a man. Sharp and sweaty. The cat in her wanted to roll in the smell, in perfect feline ecstasy, but she knew he wouldn’t like that either.
She watched his hand, so sure, guide the brush across the canvas, leaving a blue green line behind. Just a single, streaking line and Glory already knew that he was painting trees. He was just so good. He managed to catch the essence of it without the exact, constricting form of it.
“Those are different than the trees here,” she said quietly, not wanting to disturb, but needing to speak all the same.
He nodded. “Da. This is Belarusian forest.”
“Where you’re from?”
“Da.”
She chewed on her lip for a second. Trying to swallow down the words.
“Ask your question, Glory,” he said, not looking up from his work.
She let out a surprised little laugh. “How did you know I had a question?”
He looked back at her now, his eyes dark under his brow, his hair curling behind his ears. “You always have question. You are bubbly. Like little river.”
“And you’re like a lake. A mountain lake. No ripples and deep, deep, deep.”
He kept looking at her for another moment before he turned back to his painting, dipped his brush in a different, darker blue, and started adding a lake to his painting, just to please her.
She smiled at his back as she watched him.
“You never asked original question,” he prompted her.
“Do you miss it? Belarus?”
He paused, mixed colors again and resumed. “Da. Every day. My motherland. But it was not safe for us. Anton especially, after Navuka. Navuka was a government organization back then. Now? Who knows? But then, we knew the government was calling shots. The president there, he is bad man. He makes people,” he snapped his fingers, “disappear.”
Emin shrugged his shoulders. “It was right decision to come here.”
Glory bit her lip and turned to look out the window for a moment, the cheerful afternoon light soothing her. She thought about that word, motherland. So perfect. “I miss my motherland too.”
“We will find it. We will find your mother. You will return. You won’t be sad forever.”
Glory twisted a hunk of her hair in her hand. “But I will,” Glory replied. “Because here, I’m sad without my mother. But there, if I get back to her, I would be so sad without…” she trailed off.
Emin had too much pride to ask her to finish the sentence. Without AJ? Dora? All the Malashoviks? Or just him? Just Emin?
He didn’t think the answer would be good for him. No matter what it was. So he didn’t press. He simply kept painting. Even when the light changed. Even when AJ stopped by to pick up Glory for dinner.
He kept painting until it was too late to barely even see the canvas. And when he looked at what he’d painted, the trees, the lake, he realized he’d added a river into the painting as well. Painted with bright blues and greens, it popped out of the painting like light.
He turned his face from it. He could barely stand to look at what he’d painted. At the little river that led straight to the calm mountain lake.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Two weeks later Emin scowled into his beer, slouching over the bar. Well, he'd found the damn tiger and he was still as frustrated as he had been before. He hadn't been comfortable in his house since she'd gotten there.
She was still staying with him. Part of him had hoped that she’d change her mind and be more comfortable sleeping at Katya’s or AJ’s. But the other part of him knew it would have driven him insane to not see her, just see her, every day.
Their plan, as a family, was to figure out how to start looking for her mother. Dora and Danil were finishing the last touches on the investigative article on Navuka. And then after that, Dora had sworn that every last bit of her brains was going straight to tracking down Glory’s mother. And in the meantime, Glory was lounging around Emin's house, learning about the human world and driving him utterly insane.
Chatting at his elbow while he made coffee in the morning. Making little satisfied sounds as she washed her hair in his shower. And curling up next to him on the floor damn near every night.
They’d never talked about her dream about him. Her sex dream. Or whatever it was. Emin thought it wiser to take a healthy step back from it. She was so open, so guileless, that he was certain she would tell him every detail if he asked. But he needed reasons to hit the brakes. Not the gas.
It was enough to drive him out of his mind. In fact, he wasn't sure how much longer he could take it. He swore his skin had shrunk since he'd met her. Either that or he suddenly had too much blood. And it all seemed to be pooling in one place.
He slouched even further over the bar and refused to adjust himself. Not just from simply thinking about her. A man had to have standards.
Besides, all the little proximities weren't what was driving him nuts. It was what she did when she was away from him that was killing him slowly. Lately she was spending her time with Anton. Emin knew he’d been very grumpy with her, as if to warn her away. But he was irrationally irritated when it had started working.
Whether it was because of their common past experiences, or because Glory needed a break from Emin, she had started spending a few hours every day with Anton. In tiger form and bear form they wandered the wilderness together. And then they would come back, sit on Emin's front porch and talk in low voices. He knew he should be glad, deeply grateful even, that someone had opened up his little brother like this. Anton had been so deathly quiet for a decade. Never talking to anyone about his past traumas. And now he had someone to commiserate with.
Yes. Emin should be grateful.
He was miserably, horribly resentful.
He took a swig of his beer. Trying to reason with himself. Even if she wasn't interested in his brother, Emin still couldn't have her. No matter how fiercely his body insisted on it.
She was an innocent. He still stood by what he’d told her on the cliffs those weeks ago. She wasn’t ready for a mate. She sure as hell wasn’t ready for a casual sexual partner. Which was the only thing that Emin could offer her. It was the only thing he could offer any woman. If he’d had a smaller conscience, he would have told her that he could be her mate and then taken his fill of her. But he hadn’t.
She hadn’t given him any indication since that night that she had anything but sisterly feelings for him. No more dreams. No more questions. She treated him almost exactly the same as she treated his brothers. He imagined that if Maxim were sleeping every night in a nest of blankets on her floor, she would curl up to him for warmth.
And, oh, how those thoughts tortured him each night. It was such a maddening combination of knowing that he couldn’t touch her and not knowing whether or not she wanted him to.
Because for fuck sakes. She’d obviously never touched a man or been touched. Never kissed, even. Unless Anton had. Emin's knuckles whitened against his pint glass.
"What'd that glass ever do to you?" Dora asked over Emin's shoulder as she pulled up a bar stool and sat next to him. Danil cuffed Emin on the shoulders and went to the back of the bar to throw darts with Maxim.
"Okay. Not in a talky mood tonight," Dora supplied as she saw the look on Emin's face. He hadn’t been in a talky mood ever since Glorious Glory had come into their lives, but Dora wisely decided not to mention that. "Anything you want to talk about?"
"No," he replied tersely. And then, realizing how rude he was being to his sister in law, "How is article going?"
"Great! With Glory and Anton's interviews, we're really closing in on the final draft here. I'm gonna have to shop it around a little bit, but I'm hoping my buddy over at the Atlantic can pull some strings for me."
"Anton gave interview?" Emin asked, incredulously. "About his time with Navuka?" His brother, wh
o barely said two words a day, had given an interview? A feeling bubbled in Emin's stomach.
"I know, crazy, right? Glory talked him into it."
The feeling in Emin's stomach tumbled over like carbonation in a shaken soda. He swallowed against it. He shrugged like he didn't care. "They are close."
"Sure," Dora replied, eyeing him closely while pretending not to. "Like brother and sister."
Emin scoffed. "Don't be naive. They spend each day alone together."
"I don't think so," Dora said, shaking her head and taking a sip of Emin's untouched water. "Not the way you mean, at least."
"There is only one way a man spends time with woman like her," Emin said, scowling darkly. He couldn't even bring himself to say her name. How pathetic.
“Well,” Dora said, treading carefully. She didn’t want to tell any secrets, tread on any toes. She was comfortable with the Malashoviks, but she was still the new kid on the block. “Anton doesn't love Glory. I can tell you that much. And if you ask me, Glory's got a thing for-"
She cut off when her phone vibrated and Emin could have smashed the offending gadget under the heel of his boot. He really wanted Dora to finish that sentence, but he'd be damned if he'd ask.
"Speak of the devil!" Dora laughed as she opened up a text. AJ had gotten Glory a cell phone last week. And Glory was quite taken with emojis. Every text she sent was heavily laden with fireworks, shooting stars, acorns, hearts of every color. "Looks like she and AJ are hoping for a girl's night tonight. Better go clear it with hubby." Dora hopped off the bar stool and paused only to give Emin a brisk kiss on the cheek.
Emin finished his beer.
He'd really wanted her to finish that damn sentence.
***
"How do you get a man to touch you?" Glory asked as her hips swayed to the beat of the song AJ was playing. The three women were scattered around AJ's kitchen, AJ pouring margaritas in three salted glasses and Dora tearing into a bag of tortilla chips.
Both the women stilled and glanced at one another.
"Excuse me?" AJ asked, a sudden, expanding pit of ice in her stomach.
"A man, how do you get him to put his hands on you? His mouth on your mouth? And then when that happens, how do you get him to have sex with you?"
Dora choked on a tortilla chip but recovered quickly. "Well, it varies case by case. Each man is different. You got a specific one in mind?"
"Emin," Glory answered quickly and guilelessly, as if it hadn't even occurred to her to keep it a secret. She didn't notice the long, unsteady breath that AJ blew out, but Dora did. Glory plunged on. "He's so handsome. And smells so good. And is always so warm and grumpy in the morning. I like when he's grumpy. I'm not sure why. But I just do. He's like a bear coming out of hibernation."
"Wait," AJ said, latching on to one particular piece of information. "What do you mean that he's warm in the morning?"
"His body," Glory replied, taking a sniff of the margarita that AJ handed her. "When I'm on top of him in the morning. His chest and arms and neck are so warm. And yummy."
Dora squinted her eyes. "You sleep on top of him?"
"Not every night. Just when I'm chilly."
"But he doesn't touch you or try to have sex with you?" Dora asked, really working for some clarification on the issue.
"Never," Glory said, shaking her head.
"Jesus, no wonder he's grumpy in the morning," Dora murmured.
AJ bit back her grin.
"It would make him grumpy to be close to me?" Glory asked, her brow furrowing, and then exploding into pleased joy when she tasted the margarita. "How delicious! Like the way a butterfly might taste!"
AJ, quite used to Glory-isms at this point, just plowed right past. "Glory, I think it would be hard for most people to be that close to one another and not - um - do anything about it."
"Well, why wouldn't he do something about it then?" Glory asked, taking another big sip of her margarita.
Dora squinted her eyes at Glory. "Sensitive question here, Glorious. But have you ever had sex before?"
Glory laughed. "Of course not! I've barely ever talked to men that weren't the Malashoviks."
AJ and Dora exchanged glances again.
"So never even a kiss?" AJ asked.
"No. But I want to. So badly. I want Emin to kiss my lips the way Danil kisses yours," she said to Dora.
Dora had the grace to blush lightly. "Well, kissing is one thing. Sex is another. I think that's probably the reason he's not touching you, Glorious. Sex can be a big deal."
AJ turned back to the margaritas. Kissing she could talk about. Sex, not so much. She felt like a real hypocrite dishing out advice on something she'd never done before.
"But I'm old enough!" Glory insisted. "27. And wherever he touches me, I get warm. And it makes me want to bite and lick him all over."
AJ choked on her margarita while Dora just laughed. "Well, if you're sure you're ready. No harm in getting the ball rolling, I guess. Just as long as you're clear on the fact that no matter what happens, you can ask him to stop, pause, or slow down."
"Stop, pause, slow down," Glory repeated solemnly. She recognized the terms from the DVD player that Maxim had showed her how to work last week. "How do I get him to hit play? And then fast forward?"
AJ and Dora both laughed.
"Well, just off the top," Dora said, "you could touch his arms, hold eye contact. Kiss him, on his lips, on his neck. Get naked. Any and all. AJ, can you think of anything else?"
AJ wracked her inexperienced, yet very creative brain. She had a lot of man hours logged in the fantasy world of what she would do if she had a few willing moments alone with a certain Malashovik brother. "Tell him exactly what you want to do to him and what you want him to do to you."
"Nice," Dora said, going up for a five.
Glory took all the notes, solemnly. "Okay. I’ll do it all." She bit her lip for a second. "What if he doesn't want me?"
"Trust me, Glorious," Dora said, crunching on a chip. "Not. Possible.”
***
His annoying sister-in-law had insisted that Glory wasn't into Anton. But it was damn near one in the morning and Glory was nowhere to be found. If she was somewhere in the woods tangled up with his brother, Emin swore he was going to rip-
He heard a sound on the porch. A scuffling sound. The door to his cabin banged open and Emin sat straight up from where he was lying on the floor in the nest of blankets that had become his bed since Glory came into his life.
A tiger padded in and nudged the door closed behind her. He winced as the door slammed again. She was louder than usual. He furrowed his brow when her tail knocked over a painting as she padded over to him. And then he was biting back a growl as she shifted in front of his eyes. She was naked, creamy and auburn and pretty as sin in front of him.
"Glory," he groaned, slamming his eyes shut. "Put on clothes."
"No," she smiled at him, crouching down and suddenly gripping his shoulders.
Emin's eyes came open in surprise at her sudden touch and his breath came short as her eyes stared directly into his. Her eyes were pure springtime, bright green and wide and... a little blurry?
She leaned forward and he froze. This was wrong. But he wasn't sure he could stop it at this point. Until he tasted the tequila on her breath. Her lips almost on his.
She was drunk.
Kill him. Kill him now.
He twisted his face away from hers. If he wasn't taking advantage of her when she was sober he sure as fuck wasn't taking advantage of her when she was drunk. But the move freed up the line of his neck to her and he growled when her open mouth came in contact with a cord in his throat.
She nibbled it. Tested it with her teeth, gave teasing little kisses up to his ear.
He meant to push her away, but somehow his hands were tightening around her plush, naked waist. The move crushed her breasts against his chest and she made an excited little noise.
The noise echoed through his skull and it ha
d him ripping at his own leash. Jesus, that innocent little noise.
"Glory," he breathed. "You are drunk."
"No," she insisted, wiggling herself further onto his lap. "I'm just a little... sparkly."
"Yes, that is what drunk feels like." He pried her off his lap and sprang to his feet. She knelt before him in the nest of blankets, warm from his body heat, and looked up at him.
Holy god. What the fuck had he done in a past life to deserve this torture?
"Clothes," he choked out. "You need clothes."
He turned and blindly rummaged through his drawers. Why the fuck did he have a hundred loose socks and no shirts or pants? Oh, because he was digging through his sock drawer. He slammed it shut and commanded his brain to start working right.
"I don't want clothes, Emin."
He ignored her, finally locating a shirt long enough to cover the goods and tearing it out of his drawer. He strode over to her and lifted the shirt over her head, attempting to put it on. But she sidestepped and batted his hands away.
“I said that I don’t want clothes, Emin. I want to be naked. And I want you to be naked.”
His hands stuttered for a moment but then he had the shirt over her head. Now he just needed her arms.
“I want to put my mouth on you. Everywhere,” she continued as Emin developed an ulcer in front of her, trying to snake one of her arms through a sleeve. “I want you to put your mouth on me. Everywhere. I want you to make me warm. And bite me.”
He needed a second. Pacing away from her, he ripped a hand through his hair. Something inside him was dangerously close to fluttering away and he was pretty sure it was his self-control. Too bad his self-worth was lashed to it.
He took a deep breath.
“I’ve seen your man parts,” she said.
Emin’s deep breath wheezed out of him like a water balloon that had been pricked with a pin. “What?”
“Before we met, in my tiger form. Some nights I would follow you home and watch you shift. I’d see you naked. I liked it.”
